That's because BMW wanted the 1200 to appeal to riders of Japanese bikes, make it easy to ride, drain away the character but keep the anomalies....
They failed, it is nothing like any Jap bike, and I have had shed loads of them from 50's to 1400's, two strokes, four strokes, singles twins, fours and ridden every combination of inline, V's and everything else out of japan over the last 30 years.
The BMW never appealed to me, even when I was handing over the dosh I still had no idea why, I think the 1200 has a great character, it ain't no jap bike, it vibes, is relatively underpowered and theoretically cannot get close to most modern Jap bikes for handling, let alone performance.
But riding it is very enjoyable, especially on the typical British road at relatively sensible speeds, a trick none of my Jap bikes from the last 20 years could pull off, they all only provided fun at way above the legal limit, and required decent roads.
I too was worried about reliability so got a low mileage 1200, personally I wanted one with under 10k so I can use it for a few years and get rid of it before it hits the 40k you are talking about, many here will say they last much longer, but I do not have that much faith.
Buyers market though, so maybe in the depths of winter you could get a lower mileage 12 within budget, can't comment on 1100 / 1150, but must admit I am intrigued to try one after comments on this forum.
